Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Day 205


 Just a small update on the kitchen...look what got delivered last week! The granite!
 
We wanted something with the same colors that the traditional Santa Cecilia/Venetian gold granite had in it, but also wanted something a little different. Mom and I went and looked through a warehouse of slabs to picked a color called delacota cream. It has a mixture of chocolate brown, copper and cream colors in it, with a few metallic flakes. Sounds odd, but it really is pretty in person.
 
The other big thing you will see is that they delivered the hood for over the range! It accidentally got ordered in a pure white versus soft white, so we have been waiting for it to come in. We chose a style with a mantle on it. I am sure that I will enjoy decorating it especially around holidays. The entire kitchen will have crown molding that will make the cabinets appear to go to the ceiling. I feel like that will really change the way the kitchen looks.


 
 
The tiling work in our bathroom is also nearing completion. I can't wait to post pictures and share! 

Monday, March 11, 2013

Day 197

So much has happened over the past few weeks that I don't even know where to begin!
 
It took them nearly 3 days, but the majority of the kitchen cabinets are installed. I am so so so excited about them. I kept telling Ben that it was like Christmas, but better : ) As you can see in the first picture, there is a big spot where we are missing some. They accidentally ordered the hood in white, versus soft white, so they had to re-order. Eventually there will be a range hood and cabinet to the right of it. I chose to do the perimeter of the room in a soft white cabinet and the island in a darker wood. They will install the hardware in a few weeks when they come back to put the range hood up. I think it will make a big difference in the way it looks! We also went this weekend and picked out our granite slabs, they are hoping to install them on Friday.
 
 
The missing appliance on the left wall is the dishwasher. To the right of the dishwasher is the farm sink, probably one of my favorite things in the entire house. I didn't take a great up close picture, but you can see it if you look closely.
 
This wall will have the double ovens (they will cut the existing hole that you see to fit them) and refrigerator. The upper cabinets in the middle section will be open with a clear glass pane.
 
They also got started on the laundry room cabinets. The big hole you see will be the washer and dryer. I chose to do front loaders so I could put a counter top over them for folding...thank you Pinterest!
 
My desk is under the window and will have cabinets and bookcases built in the right corner. The bookcase will rest on the countertop so they will wait to install the remaining cabinets until the tops are in.  There will also be a sink and hanging bar, but they are not installed yet.
 
My brother in law has been busy working at the house to get the tile put down. We decided to do a heated floor in both the hall bath and master. They are inexpensive to do and will make a big difference. Both of these bathrooms are above the crawl space, so it would be super chilly during the winter. You can see the heating coils in the picture below.

We went with a white subway tile in the hall bath, i wanted to keep things fairly neutral and add color with fabrics and paint. The bathtub is original to the house but we will re-glaze it. For the floor, we chose a light blue penny tile (small circles). They are finishing up grouting this bathroom today and I will hopefully have pictures of it finished soon! 
 
 
We also chose a subway tile for the master bath. It is a cream color with a crackle finish. I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but it is a larger tile than we used in the hall bath.

 
 
Just to give a little perspective, the window you see in the shower is the one that is above the toilet below. We replaced the window with a patterned glass (you cant even really tell in the picture) so you couldn't see in from the outside. One of these days I am going to draw out the old and new floor plans, they really are completely different!
 
 The guest room that is right off the kitchen has a full bath attached to it, that will also serve as the mud room. Because it will be such a high traffic room, we decided to put tile down versus hardwood. They finished it up last week.
 

I did want to share 2 things just to keep things real. Not everything has gone super smoothly. For example, look how nice our garage door looks...
 Haha! Ben and I stopped by the house one night and this happened. We got in the truck to leave and when he pushed the garage door button, something went really wrong. We still don't completely know what happened. The glass didn't break when it initially came off the track. It broke a few days later when someone was trying to lift the door. In the end we will have to get a new door. I can't say I am sad, I have wanted a new door from the start, but it just didn't make any sense to buy one. The old owners replaced the door last summer and we just didn't need to spend the money. Hopefully the weather is starting to warm up and they will re pour the concrete on the garage floor. Once they do that, we will have a new door fitted.
 
I also have to tell on myself....Apparently the front door works with 2 separate keys. The deadbolt is one key and the knob is another. Ben swears he told me that, but I honesty do not remember hearing it. It makes no sense to me! I went over to meet his family Saturday morning and when I left, I locked the deadbolt and the knob, whoops. We went over later that night to meet friends and he realized what I had done. We only have the key for the deadbolt so we were out of luck. He decided we would just go around back and use the back door. Which sounded like a great idea, until he realized that I had locked the storm door ;-) I kept reminding Ben about how much he loves me, ha! He ended up taking a block and busting out the back storm door. We were going to take it off anyways, so it wasn't a big deal, just an annoyance. I can promise that I will never make that mistake again!

 
And last, but certainly not least, look what got delivered today...
 
WINDOWS! Hopefully they will be in by the end of the week.